Dark Side of the Moon
by V. Laike
Summary: He can't hear you. He doesn't want to.' Post-NRftW.


Warnings: Post-NRftW . . . This is kinda dark. And a bit gruesome. And not really happy. And did I mention dark?

Disclaimer: Not mine, though I wouldn't mind sending them cookies and milk to cheer them up just a little bit.

Many, many, _many_ thanks to my patient and long-suffering betas, izhilzha and kalquessa. Their invaluable input just makes my writing look better.

* * *

DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

by

V. Laike

_Sam! Help me! Please! Help me, Sammy! Sam!_

Dean's agony screams from the depths of the infinite void, the eternal aloneness broken only by the snaps and cracks of never-ending torture.

He hangs suspended, spread-eagled, with no orientation of up or down, day or night, beginning or end. Blood stains his teeth and crusts his clothing, and vicious hooks tear through his body like tissue while chains and shackles trap him immobile in the unending prison of pain.

_You're not worth saving._

Sam's voice echoes through the abyss.

_You're not worth the effort._

A thick black smoke, terrifying in its familiarity, emerges from the emptiness. It undulates, wraps itself around Dean, thick enough to suffocate him, smother him in its evil.

_You're alone_. _Worthless, useless, and alone. _

Dean shudders in his bonds, fists clenched as the malevolent cloud envelops him, coiling like a serpent entrapping its prey.

The voice shifts from Sam's strong, smooth tones to a soft, gentle, feminine lilt.

_He's not coming_. _He's soooo_ _much happier now. Without you._

Dean chokes a sob as he squeezes his eyes shut and turns his head, the only part of him he can move, trying to deny his tormentor.

_He was right, you know. They all were. You're pathetic. Useless. Not even worth the skin your contract was written on. _

A tear slides down Dean's cheek, the pain and torment on his face as plain as the gore that covers his body. His skin shines pale and damp through the filthy mist that roils around him.

_No more desperate, sloppy, needy Dean to hold him back. He can do anything he wants to. He can go where he wants, be who he wants. __**Kill**__ whom he wants._

A keening moan of strangled grief escapes Dean's throat. His green eyes glint glassy and feverish as static cracks eerily around him.

_How many times did he try to leave you behind? Well, now . . . now he's finally succeeded._

_And you will drown in the despair of the knowledge that you failed him. _

_Pathetic._

_Worthless._

_Failure._

_Unwanted._

_Unloved._

_Alone. _

With each word, a spectral figure flashes in the smoke, stuttering in and out with each new taunt, until it remains a gruesome, twisted, leering, hollow-eyed, skeletal demon, entangling Dean like a shroud.

The lilting croon is gone, replaced with a harsh, guttural rasp that only deepens the hopelessness in Dean's eyes.

_So scream all you want. He can't hear you. He doesn't want to._

Then Dean is alone in the eternal darkness. Always alone. Forever alone. And all he can do is scream.

_No! No! Somebody help me! Sam! Sam!_

* * *

The nights without a hunt are the hardest.

He no longer startles awake at the sound of Dean's screams. After three months, he's come to expect them. He no longer sits bolt upright in the surrounding gloom, gasping for air as his heart struggles to regain a less frantic rhythm. He no longer rushes to the bathroom to empty his stomach of whatever it might hold that night, nor buries his face in his pillow as he's wracked with full-body sobs. Now he pries his eyes open deliberately to the natural darkness of pulled blinds and drawn curtains and midnight as tears well in his eyes and slide down his face.

His dreams are vivid, real, and, he suspects, not dreams at all. He watches as his brother hangs in endless emptiness, bleeding, flesh pierced and torn and stretched away from his body—trapped and helpless and alone, so alone. He screams for Sam, screams until he can scream no more, and Sam's gut twists when he sees the anguish in Dean's eyes, the fading light that tells Sam his brother knows this is forever—forever in pain, forever in torment, forever alone. An eternity of alone.

It tears Sam up inside, and he lets the silent tears fall as he acknowledges his own helplessness.

"I can hear you, Dean," Sam whispers into the dark. "I hear you."

_finis_


End file.
